Old things from the past
by Rogercat
Summary: Fëanor and Nerdanel gets a visit from Mahtan


They had enjoyed the last hot drink from a teapot, sitting together at the most sunny spot in the garden, when the peace of the day was somewhat broken.

"Grandma! Grandfather! Great-grandfather Mahtan is coming here! Rûsa called from the front yard, where he had kept himself busy with some painting on the house walls. Why not allowing their grandson have some fun with something he liked, and getting their house decorated in a unique way at the same time? None of their own children had any real interest in painting, after all.

"Rare for my father to come here without sending a letter first. I hope that it is not something serious," Nerdanel said, putting down her teacup on the table. Fëanor, who had tried to decode Rûsa's current attempts of writing into something readable despite that the words was of horrible grammar and more of a mess, looked up from the papers in his hand.

"Perhaps he wanted to tell us something in person? You know that he often sends letters with news from Tirion."

As they came to the front yard, they saw that Mahtan indeed had arrived, and that he had been driving a carriage instead of riding. Preventing his great-grandson from climbing up on the large wheels, the red haired smith greeted his daughter and son-in-law with a smile:

"Celuwen and I was cleaning out a corner of our own attic earlier this month, and found some old things we thought that would be nice to your family to see again after all those years. Some of it are originally meant for our grandchildren, efter all."

It clearly had to be a good number of old stuff, since Mahtan had used a horse-drawn carriage to bring it to Formenos.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

As it was, Nerdanel and Fëanor did indeed recognize a lot of the stuff.

"Moryo's first sewing kit, and that poor, well used abacus all seven of them used in their school lessons with mast Rumil!"

Although he had seen similar items in the kitchen and the rest of the house, Rûsa had no idea what a lot of them actually was. For example, a strange item of cloth, and what felt like long strips of metal to make it stiff.

"Ah, that horrible court fashion, with using a corset to create a slim body back when I started to court your grandmother. I have never really understood why Indis thought that Nerdanel needed one to fit in among the noble ladies, she was lovely enough with natural strong muscles…"

Nerdanel tossed a old steel toy, narrowly identifiable as a running horse because of the passing of time, at his head in response.

"No mention of such details in front of the kid. I only tried it once and I honestly thought that I would go mad with the lack of deep breathing and being unable to move as I wanted. Honestly, I hoped that it would be gone since a long time."

"Why would anyone wear something that make you unable to breathe deeply?" Rûsa wondered, giving his maternal grandmother a confused look.

"I think your mother is a better choice to explain that part because she once was expected to be the leading lady of court fashion as a Princess, I have never bothered with that. No, give me good clothes to work in and I am happy," Nerdanel responded, she had not married Fëanor for the stunning clothes she would have to wear as the wife to the Crown prince.

There was other old things once used by their children, as well by themselves back before the Darkening of Valinor. Fëanor even found some items he once had done as a apprentice under Mahtan's tutorship, and recalled that he must have saved them as a memory from the time he was a beginner in being a blacksmith. Or perhaps to remind himself that no one can craft beautiful things without being taught first.

"Ha ha, oh I remember her face when you showed it for the family, that crown you created in a attempt to give Nelyo something different to wear!" Nerdanel laughed when her husband held up a golden headdress, which was crest shaped and still had some lovely emeralds fastened.

"I still think it is one of my best works for my children. Perhaps she would like to have it back?"

Mahtan held up a footstool, made of iron, which he explained to Rûsa that his mother and uncles had used that to reach up better when they were small. Then Fëanor got their attention again.

"Oh, I remember those! The model for the outsoles of the shoes Nelyo used, back when she was a child and nothing could tell of how tall she would end up as a adult."

In fact, when Fëanor requested his grandson to sit down on the grass for a moment and allowing him a quick checking, he could see that Rûsa only needed a few more years of growing before his feet would fit into the shoe size.

"If we ask the shoemaker to use this model and add in a rolled piece of soft cloth at the toes until that your feet are the right size, you would not need to worry about them being too big for now. With some luck, you would not outgrowing them and having to buy new shoes for a decade, I hope."

Rûsa did not see anything strange with him getting some outdated shoe model from his mother, even if it was not directly from her. As a slave, he had suffered the pain of either having to walk barefoot, very worn-out sandals or ill-matched boots which could be either too small or too big for his feet. So why fuss about that it was a model not common anymore?

"Is there any clothes left from that time? I thought that if I could wear some of them, I might be able to better understand our family…"

He was not really sure on how to explain it.

"No clothes, but we spared the designs from their childhoods. The fashion changed a lot from when Nelyo was little, to when Ambarussa and your cousin was in the same age," Mahtan explained, handing over some very old parchments to his son-in-law as Rûsa picked up the footstool and hurried away to somewhere else.

"Thanks for the footstool, great-grandfather!"

~X~X~X~X~X~X

As they had guessed, Nerdanel and Fëanor found their younger grandson already using said footstool, making himself able to reach higher on the house wall with his paint brushes and crayons.

"Pardon our manners, Atto, we should have invited you to a simple meal before we got caught up in what you had brought along."

Mahtan waved with one hand.

"No worry, I had some extra food supplies with me. But I would not refuse some of that nice tea I smelled earlier."

With a smile, Nerdanel offered her father to follow her to the kitchen, while Fëanor chose to keep a eye on Rûsa. Best to ensure that he did not draw any shocking images by mistake or out of ignorance of what was acceptable and not acceptable to draw in public for everyone to see, there had been some surprises in the past week when he had drawn something that could indirectly reveal his actual past and the family had been forced to white-paint the house wall again during the night to make sure that no one had seen the images.

"As if our current lives are boring with Rûsa around...this amount of family drama is easier to handle than a massive army of orcs to fight against!" Fëanor thought, before he needed to rush forward and catch his grandson from tripping over, because Rûsa had the mad idea of trying to stand on a metal bucket on top of the footstool, so he could reach even higher. Really, this was just another reminder of when his own seven children was in that age, all eager to test limits and narrowly avoiding that it could end badly.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

Celuwen is the name of Mahtan's wife I chose for my own stories, and who I headcanon to be a strawberry blonde to help explain the mix of hair colours in the Fëanorian family.


End file.
